Aisling sighs. “Aye.”
Keenan frowns. “The problem is, you’re not off the hook, Ais.”
I feel my belly tighten, and I sit up straighter.
“What do you mean?”
“Brady has it on record now, that Aisling was acting in self-defense. We were able to run the reel at the school, and we’ve got Vivian admitting as much as well.”
“Aye,” Aisling says. “That was smart.”
Keenan blows out a breath. “But the Prime Minister isn’t buying it, and you know he’s powerful. The good news is, hardly anyone knew that the girl you brought to the school was the same girl who worked for Vivian, Tiernan. So they don’t know she’s here.”
“Doesn’t matter, though, does it, if the Prime Minister’s determined to take her down?”
Keenan shakes his head. “We have clout, boys, but you know he’s got connections as well.”
We do. Deep ones.
“So what do we do, then? Run?” I hate the fucking thought. I’ve never run from a threat in my life, and I don’t fucking want to start now.
Keenan nods thoughtfully. “So far we’ve managed to find the threat against us. Through Aisling’s tactics, we’ve removed any implication that a McCarthy was responsible for the death. But now we need to remove any threat against Aisling. I’m afraid even if the courts rule in her favor, and both Brady and Walsh are absolutely certain they can make that happen… well, it doesn’t eliminate the threat against her personally.”
“Jesus,” Nolan mutters. “All he’d have to do is hire a hitman, eh?”
“Aye.”
I hold her hand tighter, her fingers woven into mine, like the tapestry of my life. Right here, nearly all that matters is the people in this room and my siblings. My brothers of the Clan, and the woman I’ll make my wife.
“Got an idea,” Aisling says. Her eyes shine like beacons in the dark, and I swear to Christ it makes my dick hard. She’s so fucking brilliant.
Keenan nods, giving her permission to speak.
She swallows hard, holds my hand tighter, and states her plan. “We fake my death.”
Keenan’s brows shoot up. “Your death, Aisling?”
“Aye,” she says firmly. “My death.”
Bloody hell.
She’s determined. “It just might work, Keenan.”
Keenan nods. “You’re right. It likely would. But would anyone in Ballyhock recognize you?”
“Well, with these changes we’ve made, I hardly recognize myself,” she says with a laugh.
“And she wouldn’t be here on the premises often if she got a job at the school, would she?” I suggest.
Keenan looks from me to her. “Job at the school?”
Aisling’s eyes shine bright. “Oh, God, I’d love that.” She looks like she might cry. She jerks her chin at me. “Tiernan’d make a bloody good teacher himself.”
Nolan grins. “He fucking would.”
Cormac looks reluctant. “We need him here working for the Clan.”
Keenan shakes his head. “Of course we do. Working as a teacher at St. Albert’s wouldn’t eliminate him from Clan duties.”
I’m surprised, because I actually love that idea.
“Well, now, something we can talk about for sure,” I say. “Would give me direct contact with Aisling’s guard.”
“My guard?”
“We’d have to make sure you were safe.”
Nolan sits up. “There were a handful at the school who knew she had a different identity, but that’s fairly easily dealt with. She gets a new look altogether. New I.D. She becomes Tiernan’s, and no one can deny that’s who she is. ‘Tis the Prime Minister we need to appease after all.”
Aisling’s eyes shine. “Would anyone at the school turn me in, though?”
“We’ll run a thorough sweep, but it seems the headmaster had two boys he paid to snoop, as well as Vivian, and we’ve dismissed the boys from school.”
Aisling’s face falls. “Well that’s terrible. It isn’t their fault if they were coerced.”
Keenan clears his throat. “Aisling, that school serves as a grooming school for the McCarthy Clan. Anyone who shows anything but total allegiance to the Clan is not welcome.”
She nods slowly. “I see,” she finally says. “Fair enough, then.” She chews her lip and then nods. “Okay, then. We fake my death. How?”
I hold her hand tighter as we make our plans.She sleeps like a baby beside me that night, the day before we enact our plan. I hold her to me and dream of the plan we hatched. Car accident. A pronouncement that she’s found dead on arrival. Carson’s wife, clan cousin Megan, works at the hospital and has a friend who will aid us for a sum. We hold a funeral, we fake her death. Aisling has very few friends and family left who will mourn her passing.
And she’s got a new family here with us.
I expect she’ll be troubled by the plan, but she hasn’t looked this relaxed since she came here. I wonder why. I finally fall asleep myself.
The next morning, I wake with her between my legs, her mouth working wonders on my cock.
“Christ, woman,” I say, my words slurred from sleep. “What magic are you doing?”